


All That Matters

by stuffilikeiwrite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Darth Vader Needs a Hug, Darth Vader Redemption, Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, POV Ahsoka Tano, Protective Ahsoka Tano, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26325700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffilikeiwrite/pseuds/stuffilikeiwrite
Summary: "Then explain to me. I'm here now. It doesn't matter who you are, or what you've done. Make me understand."
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 4
Kudos: 152





	All That Matters

"You don't have to do this alone," Ahsoka implored in what she hoped was a convincing tone, taking one hesitant step towards the man she'd once called her brother.

Her former master, her mentor, her best friend. _Anakin_. 

He'd taught her everything she knew, taught her to be independent, believed in her when no one else would. He’d saved her life, he’d stood by her, he’d been heartbroken when she turned her back on the Jedi order. How had such an emotive man come to fall so far from grace? How had he successfully traded in his gentle, kind hearted, welcoming persona for the visage of a thoughtless, mass murdering machine? 

"You fail to _understand_ ," he snapped, his voice a jumbled mixture of his voice box and a meek version of his own struggling vocal cords as he shot her down. "I am no longer that man."

There was a frantic sense of urgent desperation to the statement, as if he was barely managing to hold onto his own lie. As if the walls he’d forged over the years were crumbling around him. Ahsoka shook her head vehemently in response, continuing to resolutely approach him with a stubborn determination. Clenching her jaw, she let the hilts of the sabers she was clutching in her trembling hands fall to the floor with a clatter. Discarding her only self defense, stripping herself bare. She noticed his sickly yellow eyes dart towards the source of the noise, registering her surrender before the intense stare returned to capture hers.

"Then explain to me. I'm here now. It doesn't matter who you are, or what you've done. Make me understand."

Ahsoka meant every word, every utterance. He flinched visibly as he took in the weight of what she implied, the eye wide with jaded disbelief and confusion. The terrifying amount of loathing and disgust she'd sensed when she first arrived for the confrontation had all but vaporized. Dissipating as if it had never been there to begin with. Instead there lingered a tense, uneasy sense of dread between them. She wasn't afraid per se, she just couldn't predict his reactions. His behaviour was so far from the Anakin she'd once known. Although, some things remained the same, she could tell. For example, she could still read his exposed eye like an open book. He was wavering, his conviction faltering and she was there to catch him when he fell. _If_ he fell. 

She prayed that he _would_ fall.

"But it does. It _does matter_. All the things I have done… I cannot change what I have become, neither can you change me. Your efforts are misguided."

He trailed off, finally looking away. Averting his gaze, a distinct sense of shame bled into Anakin’s Force signature. The guilt was suffocating, closing in around Ahsoka as it poured off of him. Crashing in thick waves, dark and deep and overwhelming. Still, she bit her lip and continued to close in. He wasn't making any effort of moving to attack, wasn't attempting to back away. She was vaguely aware of her hand coming up by its own volition to blindly reach out for him.

"I don't care," she assured, but she felt her voice catch in her throat as the burn of tears began behind her eyes.

"How dare you?!" he roared, a static shriek accompanying the booming vocals of the modulator cutting her off; eyes wide and crazed. "Do you even understand who I am? Do you even _comprehend_ what I have done?"

Ahsoka stopped dead in her tracks, swallowing hard. She was almost _expecting_ him to revert back into fervent denial, to shoot her down and once again proclaim himself to be Vader. To once again pretend she meant nothing to him, that their past was nullified and nonexistent. That he had erased her impact on his life. 

Instead, she watched the eerie golden glow of his eye begin to diminish. Slowly, as if it were fading and tapering out. As if it were a hue or film, being slowly wiped away. As if the fog was lifting, as if the spell of his self imposed mind control was breaking. As if the facade was cracking, as if he was coming apart. And little by little, a familiar pale blue shade began to emerge. 

When Anakin spoke again, his tone was broken and quiet.

“You should be _horrified_.”

His broad shoulders gave a small wince, before sagging. Ahsoka watched him blink rapidly, apologetic gaze darting all over her face. It _hurt_. The pain radiating off of him was aiming straight for her consciousness, surging through her like red hot wires. Forcing her to share his suffering with pulses of intense, sharp anguish. She could sense his turmoil, his reluctance, his terror. He was terrified when faced with the prospect of accepting every heinous act he had committed as Vader, every atrocious thing he had done. He was frightened of the need to admit that there had _never been_ a Vader in the first place, that everything was on _him_. He alone was to blame.

Yet, Ahsoka found she couldn't bring herself to blame him alone. She may resent what he had become, what he had done, but she could never bring herself to hate him. He was still Anakin, and whatever had led him down this path, she imagined it must be horrific. She had abandoned him when he needed her the most, if only she had been there for him - perhaps he might never have stooped so low. Bracing herself, she began to inch closer to him again. Her fingers twitching in anticipation, hand still reaching out towards him. Offering him a connection, a saving grace.

"I killed them... every single one of them. Every Jedi I could see. All of them. I had to, I couldn't stop. I had no choice. I couldn't..."

Even through the malfunctioning voicebox, the way his voice broke carried through as an unnatural, irregular pitching tone. 

_Blue_. 

His eye was so light, so alive, a hurricane of emotions whirling within its depths. Like a clear, cloudless sky with a thunderstorm lurking at the horizon. Bloodshot, the scleras more pink than white. But the iris was baby blue.

"I _know_ ," Ahsoka simply whispered, nodding her head before repeating her words. “I know.”

She stretched her arm out further, taking a couple of more steps as he hung his head low. His gaze falling to the ground, a shudder wracking his large bulky frame. She focused on the eye, or as much of it as she could see when the helmet he wore shrouded it in dark shadows. Just a gentle, barely perceptible grace as her fingertips brushed against the rough fabric of his black cape. He didn't react, and she suspected he couldn't feel it. How much of his body was even his own anymore? Cautiously, she let her palm touch the armour piece before sliding over his shoulder. When it reached his upper arm, she pressed down to offer it a comforting squeeze - hoping he would feel _that_.

It spurred an immediate reaction. His head flew up, and he reared back as if he'd been burnt. As if her touch stung him. Eye wide open as he stared at her in shock, in astonishment; pleading with her not to allow herself to be tainted by his sins. In defense, Ahsoka held both hands up in front of her; what she hoped to be a reassuring expression on her face. She felt her stomach twist itself into tight knots, the bile rising in her throat. Once again, she was near convinced he would backtrack. She expected him to reignite his lightsaber, to waste little time in dispatching her. She held her breath, waiting fretfully.

Instead, she watched his naked eye slide shut. Instead, she watched as his tight grip on his own weapon loosened. She watched the hilt slide out of his gloved grip. Eyes flying back up to his face, she once again caught him staring at her. His blue eye misty, glazed over. It was only then she caught the gleam of tears pooling at the corners. She watched them gather, watched the unshed beads of water continue to well up.

"Anakin..." she gasped. "Oh, _Anakin_."

"I killed the younglings. I killed them _all_ ," he whispered. "What have I done?"

His voice was so weak, so full of regret and tangible remorse. The voicebox didn't even pick up on it. Only his own strangled, choked human tone piped up. Ahsoka could barely make it out, but she watched in stunned silence as a single tear broke free. Slowly, it made its way down his scarred, deformed, deathly pale cheek. Then followed another. And another. She could see him visibly trembling with the effort of attempting to restrain himself, the effort of holding his suffering back. Keeping it locked up, despite its attempts to overrule his ironwill.

Two steps, and once again her palm touched his arm. Face hard set, despite the stinging salty wetness prickling at the corners of her own eyes, she let her free hand come up. Careful but without hesitance, she gently let the pad of her thumb reach inside the crack of his face plate. She ran it ever so smoothly over his pale damaged skin, brushing away the wetness it found there only for another tear to break free.

"I _know_ , Anakin. I forgive you."

He didn't respond, and for a second Ahsoka feared she had destroyed what little may be left of his fragile sanity. He stood still as a statue, as if the words wouldn't register. Gaze fixed straight ahead, as if seeing right through her. She raised her voice slightly when she spoke up again, desperate to get through to him. She put every ounce of her unabashed sincerity behind the words.

"Anakin. I _forgive_ you."

A hideous sound erupted from him, and she suspected it was a sob tearing its way out. She blinked back her own tears, keeping a hold on herself as Anakin's legs began to buckle under his own weight. Another choked, an erratic static noise the only way in which the modulator could translate the whimpers. Still clinging to him, she had no choice but to follow him down as he sank hapless to his knees; shoulders shaking while the pain, the guilt and the sorrow he must have been keeping bottled up for years broke free. Without second thoughts, Ahsoka wrapped her slender arms around his large frame to her best extent. With gentle hands, she caressed his broad back. She exhaled a stuttering, weak sigh.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," he rambled brokenly in a mantra, hoarse and choppy as he cried. "Oh mom, forgive me, Padmé, forgive me...! Ahsoka... forgive me, _please_ , forgive me...!"

"It's alright. I forgive you, Anakin. _I forgive you_ ," Ahsoka murmured, a pang of laboured guilt present in her chest but she could do nothing else.

As soon as she'd spoken those words, his hands flew up. Hovering midair inches from her waist as if afraid to touch her, as if he feared he might break her in half if he tried. Anakin, who had always been starving for hugs, for touches, for _affection_. Why had he deprived himself of physical comfort for so long? She could sense his loneliness, his solitude as clearly as were it her own. Pressing down, she stroked his back more firmly and hummed to encourage, as if to assure him it was okay. She relaxed when his trembling arms came around her in a humble, restrained embrace. It seemed as if he had to relearn how to hold another person all over again.

Anakin still weeping, Ahsoka finally allowed herself to cave into her own emotional overload. Sniffling, she smiled brokenly, keeping a watchful eye on him through her tears. They had so little time, it wasn't safe here. The entire temple was ready to collapse at any moment. Yet, if they died together like this, she wouldn't mind it much. Instead, she clung tighter to her brother, her master, her only remaining family. 

Anakin. She forgave him. He was himself again. He was in his right state of mind, no matter how agonizing. No matter how harsh the truth may be.

They were together again. _Nothing else mattered._

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wanted to write a scenario for what if Vader had seen reason on Malachor, and crumbled apart rather than staying true to his pretense and trying to kill Ahsoka. I was also compelled to write a more emotional piece, so I hope this worked out as an alternate reality sort of story. Enjoy!


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